Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Nut Roast

A steamed and baked roast made from nuts, beans, spices, eggs, and flour, finished with a brown crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Vegetable Nut Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

  2. If the mixture is too dry, add cold water carefully to avoid making it too moist.

Bag and steam

  1. Prepare a thick muslin bag, round at the bottom and wider in the middle.

  2. Pour boiling water over the bag.

  3. Wring the bag out.

  4. Fill the bag with the mixture.

  5. Tie the bag with stout twine, leaving some room for swelling.

  6. Place the bag in a steam cooker or ordinary steamer.

  7. Cook for three hours.

  8. Remove the bag from the steamer.

Bake and serve

  1. Cut open one side of the bag.

  2. Let the roast roll out onto an oiled baking sheet.

  3. Brush the top of the roast with peanut oil using a clean piece of muslin.

  4. Bake in the oven until it has a beautiful brown crust.

  5. Transfer the roast to a platter.

  6. Garnish as desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beans + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Beans + sagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Pressed hard-boiled eggs bind the mixture and give the roast a firm, sliceable structure.
Gluten
Gluten adds protein that helps the roast hold together and set firmly.
Zwieback
Dry crumbed bread absorbs moisture and adds body to the mixture.
Nut butter
Nut butter contributes fat and richness, keeping the roast moist and tender.
Pecan meal
Ground nuts add fat, flavor and body to the roast.

The step that matters

Adding water to the mixture. Water should be added only if the mixture is too dry, and carefully. Too much moisture makes the roast soggy and slack, so it will not hold its shape when steamed and cut.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beans, sage, celery, almond, egg):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beans, sage, celery, almond, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipes